Truce Is Reached in Battle Over Idaho Forest Land

Indiana and the Bush administration agreed to an unlikely truce allowing a mix of roads, logging and development as well as fully protected forest areas.

FELICITY BARRINGER

Legal and political battles over the future of national forest land have raged since 2001, with the Clinton administration’s “roadless rule” protecting millions of acres from loggers, miners and development, and the Bush administration pushing for less-restrictive rules.

On Friday, Idaho, one of the most forested states in the country — and one of the most conservative — announced an unlikely truce. With the support of hunters, fishermen and some environmental groups, the state and the Bush administration agreed on regulatory safeguards for 9.3 million acres that had been designated as roadless areas by the Clinton administration — and thus free of commercial activity.

The compromise would leave about 3.3 million acres of the total roadless. About 5.6 million acres would enjoy similar protections, though exceptions could be made for logging in areas where fires could put communities at risk. An additional 400,000 acres would be open to all development.

Mark E. Rey, an under secretary of the federal Department of Agriculture who oversees the Forest Service, said the roadless rule “was an issue that we engaged throughout.” Mr. Rey added, “Today is a kind of epiphany because we might have a solution for at least one state.”

Chris Wood, the chief operating officer of the environmental group Trout Unlimited who worked for the Forest Service in the Clinton administration, said Friday: “I believe the 2001 roadless rule to be one of the most effective conservation measures of our time. However, conservation cannot endure if the people most affected by it don’t support it.”

Lt. Gov. James E. Risch, whose background in forestry gave him a shared experience and vocabulary with the competing interests, said Friday, “We are proud of the way we manage our own state lands, and our own private lands.”

But it is clear, Mr. Risch said, that officials resent the federal government’s dominance. “They own two out of every three acres in Idaho,” he said in asserting that that automatically limited the state’s ability to control land within its own boundaries.

Idaho, in fact, was the first state to go to court to block the Clinton administration’s rule, a suit that is still unresolved.

The plan originally submitted by the state drew sharp criticism from environmental groups. But some groups moved to support it after it became clear that about 3.3 million acres would have a higher degree of protection, equivalent to federal wilderness areas. Negotiations ensured that there would be substantial barriers to road construction in much of the rest of the 9.3 million acres.

Rick Johnson, the executive director of the Idaho Conservation League, which backed the new plan, said in an interview: “If you look at the substance, it’s frankly not hugely different from the Clinton rule of 2001. What is different is the messenger.”

Mr. Johnson added, “In 2001 we had a Democratic president telling Idaho that 9.3 million acres of their landscape was going to be managed a specific way.”

The new plan was a local product, and that, he said, made it acceptable.

Other wilderness-protection groups opposed the plan released on Friday. Some, like the Wilderness Society, based in Washington, were concerned about the likelihood of phosphate mining in the acreage with less protection, and continued to press for the full measure of safeguards afforded by the Clinton-era rule.

Craig Gehrke, the regional director of the Wilderness Society, said on Friday that the organization’s position had been that all the national forest land protected by the 2001 rule “should be left roadless and undeveloped.”

The compromise on forest protections was embraced in the federal government’s final environmental impact statement, which will be open to public comment for 30 days. Final adoption would probably come late in the fall.

The new regulation covers only Idaho. The original Clinton rule applied to the entire country. That rule and a Bush administration substitute have been tangled in two-track litigation in federal courts, and it is not clear whether the new Idaho compromise plan will remain free of this tangle.

While the compromise was being hailed in a news conference in Boise, Idaho’s capital, in Colorado the battle continued unabated. That state, where 4.1 million acres were protected by the original roadless rule, has proposed a plan that has drawn fierce criticism from environmental groups for provisions that, they say, cater to ski resorts, ranchers and other commercial interests.

Mike King, the deputy director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, said the draft proposal had exempted some categories of land from roadless protections but had not delineated the boundaries of the land. This prompted assertions from environmental groups that the loopholes made the rule meaningless.

That proposal is now the subject of public meetings, Mr. King said, adding that the state is not concerned about pushing for federal approval before the Bush administration leaves office.

“We’re not concerned about the timing,” he said. “We’re concerned about getting it right.”

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.